Knitting Lace Expert Brooke Nico

Brooke Nico learned to sew when she was little (another person who doesn’t fit into the fashion industry mold and needed to make her own clothes). She kept sewing through college and having kids until she had to give up her sewing studio when she became a stay-at-home mom. In desperation for something to do, she ran out one day, bought Knitting for Dummies and a skein of yarn, and taught herself to knit. As Brooke was not one to make scarves or washcloths, her first project was an intarsia sweater for her young son. After that first project, she decided to make her own patterns and hasn’t looked back since.

A few years after learning to knit, she became co-owner of a yarn shop, Kirkwood Knittery, in St. Louis, MO with one of her former students, Robin Schrager. Brooke attended a SoHo publishing shop owners meeting and was noticed for the sweater she was wearing. They asked her if she wanted to publish it and that’s how she got into publishing her designs. Brooks niche in the design world is lace garments. The intricacies and challenge with lace really inspires her. She really tries to work garment shaping into the lace patterns. Brooke has been published in Vogue Knitting, Knitters magazine, and Debbie Bliss magazine.

Her newest publication is a book, Lovely Knitted Lace: A Geometric Approach to Gorgeous Wearables. Each section of the book is based on a specific shape. Each shape is then explored to make several different garments that can be made with different shaping or seaming. The pieces are made to have a great feel and drape with great yarns, Brooke takes great care to swatch and choose the perfect yarn and gauge. The book is not quite out yet, but keep an eye out for it soon!

You can find Brooke on: her yarn shop’s website KirkwoodKittery.com and Ravelry. Brooke also attends the various yarn events like Stitches and VK Live.

Just wanted to say I really enjoy your podcasts now that I found them! And you don’t need to apologize for “being all over the place” with your topics as it all falls under the main umbrella of yarn and what creative things we do with it. It’s really fun listening in, just like a telephone conversation with a best friend! Thank you for what you’re doing, Marly! And although math may get scary for some people when it comes to needlework, geometry is the beauty that brings all the dimensions in together which makes the math enjoyable and even intriguing.

In high school the only classes I truly enjoyed were physics and geometry. Nowadays I find that the patterns I am immediately drawn to are the ones with geometric patterns, they just make the most sense and are more logical to me. That’s probably why I’ve dove head first into the Great Hexipuff Challenge on Ravelry.

Having become a knitter in the last twelve years, I have gained a new appreciation for geometry and math in general that I never had before. My relationship with numbers was sketchy at best until I realized how pattern, order and logic (not to mention great yarn!) can create beautiful, inspiring results. Brooke’s new book looks like it will be an incredible combination of all these things.

What a relief to hear that I’m not alone in being attracted to lace because of geometry! Thanks for the opportunity to hear from Brooke herself, and to find out more about the upcoming book. I can tell I will enjoy it. I hope I win!

Geometry … oh that brings back nightmares…. I have never been a big math person I am more of a science and literature girl. I loved the show and learned a lot. Brooke Nico has some awesome designs and look like a geometric art in away.

I love when others figure out the geometry and math required to whip up beautiful designs – and I can just follow directions and get a stunning piece as a result!! I kept on admiring Brooke’s designs during the interview… what beautiful, intricate and totally wearable designs!

I hated geometry in high school – all we did the entire year was prove theorems step by step by tedious step; every single one ever done in the geometry subset of math, over & over. never saw the point – formulas yes, proving them, no. that year never helped me in any of my advance math classes either.